Pentagon Budget Draws Criticism in Senate

By THOM SHANKER

Published: February 11, 2005

Influential senators from both parties on Thursday challenged the Pentagon's proposals to retire an aircraft carrier, to put off a permanent expansion of the Army and to include what they called predictable expenses in an urgent request for money to pay war costs in Iraq.

At a hearing of the Senate Armed Services Committee, some senators criticized the administration for planning to use a supplemental spending bill to cover a temporary increase in Army personnel already approved by Congress, as well as to pay for new support units to the Marine Corps and replacements or spare parts for equipment lost or worn out in combat.

For example, some of the supplemental money, the officers conceded, would be used for purposes like buying additional Predator drones this year and next.

Senator John McCain, Republican of Arizona, noted that the committee supported the Predator program but that the danger of including ordinary costs in an urgent supplemental bill was that it ''removes from our oversight responsibilities the scrutiny that these programs deserve.''

The high pace of wartime operations has strained the services in many ways, senators were told.

Gen. John P. Jumper, the Air Force chief of staff, disclosed that some of the military's oldest C-130 cargo planes are developing cracks in their wings and that 30 will need to be grounded and 58 more carefully inspected.

''That will impact about a dozen airplanes over in Iraq right now that we'll have to swap out,'' General Jumper said.

The Air Force has been operating roughly 60 of the planes in the region; they are workhorses for hauling cargo, used intensively as a way of minimizing the exposure of truck convoys that were coming under repeated attack.

Military officials said the cracks leading to the new grounding, which are in a structural part known as the wing box, were found during routine inspections. And while they are worrisome enough to warrant grounding and inspections for older airplanes, the C-130's with fewer flying hours will continue to fly.

The wing box, which holds the wing in place, is the component most susceptible to the stresses of flying with heavy loads under combat conditions.

When each of the service chiefs was asked, ''What keeps you up at night,'' General Jumper replied: ''Sir, my principal concern right now is the age of our fleet and the consequences of having some catastrophic or class-level problem with very old systems. It would take large chunks of our capability away from us at one time.''

The budget would sharply cut production of C-130's, which some lawmakers oppose and which General Jumper said was already being reconsidered.

Senator John W. Warner, Republican of Virginia and a former Navy secretary who is chairman of the Armed Services Committee, also questioned the administration's logic in proposing to retire the carrier John F. Kennedy, based in Florida, as part of a cost-cutting initiative that would reduce the carrier fleet to 11.

Adm. Vern Clark, the chief of naval operations, said the Navy could now surge six carriers into service in 30 days and add two more to combat duties in 90 days, reducing the risk of retiring the Kennedy.

The overall tone of the four-hour session with the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marine Corps chiefs was set when Gen. Peter J. Schoomaker of the Army made no opening statement except to introduce three soldiers just back from the war zone -- one active duty, one National Guard and one a reservist. They received a standing ovation.

Even so, Senator McCain and Senator Carl Levin of Michigan, the committee's ranking Democrat, criticized the administration for offering a Pentagon budget that had no allowance for next year's operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.

In planning a supplemental in addition to the $419.3 billion Pentagon budget, the administration ''hides the true size of the overall budget deficit because it does not include the cost of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan,'' Mr. Levin said.

An $81 billion supplemental spending request for the fiscal year 2005, which began last October, is expected next week.

The debate over expanding the Army also roiled the hearing. The Senate's leader in pressing for the increase, Senator Jack Reed, Democrat of Rhode Island, declared, simply, ''I think we need more troops.''

Photo: Gen. Peter J. Schoomaker of the Army passed a note to an aide yesterday as he, Adm. Vern Clark of the Navy and Gen. Michael W. Hagee of the Marines testified before the Senate Armed Services Committee. (Photo by Doug Mills/The New York Times)